Conspiracy of Doves

By Helen Conner

Cat lives with her African mother in Henry VIIIs London. They take in washing to make their living.

Then she is taken by a man who keeps her captive for some years while doing her no harm. Her mother is taken to a bawdy house in Southwark.

Eventually, Cat is given as a gift to Queen Elizabeth, whom she strongly resembles, although with darker colouring.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris UK
• Release date: May 30, 2017
• ISBN: 9781543485622

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Copyright © 2017 by Helen Conner.

ISBN:       Softcover       978-1-5434-8563-9

                 eBook             978-1-5434-8562-2

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 05/30/2017

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C at

caught a glimpse of the new moon between two high buildings. It was tipped, slanted, like a saucer having milk spilled from it.

She weighed her fatigue, the size of the bundle she carried, the distance she had let grow between herself and her mother’s heels - and then she realised this could be her last chance for a long time, stopped weighing things and ran, stumbling a little, to catch up with her mother.

When she got there, she had no breath to speak, just glanced sideways at the new moon, let her eyes implore - a little, not too much.

Her mother followed her eyes, then smiled her rare smile, a little crooked, a little wry.

"Crescent moon up in the sky,

"She follow we home, you and I -

"But she don’t be walking, she lie back at ease,

"She don’t got to hurry, she do as she please,

"Only look down on us just for to tease,

As we hurry home, you and I.

Cat frowned. Her mother’s voice was full of heavy sadness, so that she was almost sorry she’d pulled her away from whatever she’d been thinking about, marching on ahead like she had.

She let herself fall behind again, wondering what was going through her mother’s mind.

The clothes they carried were from the bawdy house. She knew her mother hated doing business with them - hated more when the only way they could find money enough for rent, for food, for protection, was to go into one of the upstairs rooms.

Today there had been one man, rich, soft, and the madam had stayed the whole time. He hadn’t touched either of them - hadn’t tested the copper curl of Cat’s hair against the black twist of her mother’s, hadn’t tweaked the corner of her dress to see if the skin beneath was white, not amber, or licked a finger and rubbed at her mother’s skin, to see what might come off.

He had just looked, said, Yes - yes, I do see what you mean, and waved a hand in dismissal.

Cat had always hated going into the upstairs rooms - it made her feel like a dog set to fight a bear, over-matched and knowing it. Afterwards, she had trouble looking at her mother, and knew it would be a long time before she’d get her mother to look straight at her.

But it was money - and money was always good. And she could ask her mother for anything afterwards, because they would be the Only Two. If she asked her mother to carry her home, she would pick her up, her and both bundles, and stagger down the street a few steps before spilling her burdens, daughter and laughter and all, into the muddy street.

But she was chin-high to her mother now - she’d decided not to play that game again until she was strong enough to carry her mother and both bundles, and be the one to stagger and laugh.

You got somewhere else to go?

She’d walked straight by her mother - straight past the alley that led to their door. She ducked past her mother, lifted the string that opened the door, and made her way straight to bed. She disposed the bundle carefully, pillow and bolster both, and watched her mother through slitted eyes as she sorted through her bundle - this to soak, this to scrub, this to handle later when they’d feel as fragile as the flimsy things that would tolerate no soaking, no scrubbing.

When her mother had finished the first bundle, she’d have to take over. Unless she wanted to play the ‘only two’ card early. If she held onto it, it might be worth more. If she held onto it, it might be trumped by some real or imagined reason for her mother to turn against her.

She let herself believe she’d play the card until her mother had finished altogether with her bundle - and then she rolled off the bed, hauled her bundle over, and started the long job of sorting.

Tell me about my father, she said. Best time to ask this question was when she was firmly African - give it a few days, she’d be the half-white ingrate again, you wait, you’ll see.

Your father? He was a big man. Big in all ways. And - a king among men. Generous. Warm. But warm as England sun - not warm like sun of Afric. He gave me gold to live on for years after he sent me from him…

Cat kept her attention carefully on her work. To ask questions was to invite rebuke. Rebuke followed by long silence.

Her silence was rewarded. If I was still with him - ah, you’d have mothers courting you for their fine sons. Boys dressed like peacocks, with emeralds on their pinkie the colour of your eyes…

Cat made herself breathe evenly, and act like nothing in the world was more important than this sad thing in her hands that some woman would be wearing in two days time - hardly enough to keep out the cold…

The women went into the bawdy houses fine and strong, and they came out broken. So much money flowed towards them, and it seemed like they were chained on a rock, with nothing to do but be beaten at and steadily chilled by waves of wealth, all the time waiting for a dragon to show up.

She hated her life, often enough, nothing but work and worry. Still, year on year, she and her mother got stronger and cleverer, better at charming the wolf away from their door, towards someone else’s.

Her mother was talking again - she put her chain of thought up onto a shelf in her mind, to be taken down and knit at later.

Your eyes… green as a leaf in spring, they are. Who needs emeralds with eyes like that?

Cat was perturbed. What had happened to the fine boys with their ambitious mothers? What had happened to the palaces and fine riding horses her mother would usually have reached by now, if she hadn’t sunk already into a dejected silence?

Nice as it was to have pretty eyes - it hardly outweighed all of that.

Cat swung down the road, her bundle perched neatly on her hip. She looked back over her shoulder, and realised she was losing her mother again. It was odd - the old king had died, the young king on his throne looked fair to be the granting of universal wishes. Everyone rejoiced - but her mother alone had become - not old. She was not even near old - but she had begun to seem a particular age, not young, where once she had seemed eternal, unchanging.

Her boundless energy, her limitless determination seemed to falter, now and then.

Cat smiled a little to herself, slowing her steps until her mother was beside her again.

You want be carried? she asked slyly.

She stayed a decent distance away from her mother while her mother walked the wavering line between anger and laughter, between indignation and gratitude.

Finally, her mother laughed, and she laughed with her.

Tchah! was all her mother said, but it was good. Mad over happy - not happy over mad.

So. Fourth chick - tell me about her.

This was a new game between them.

Old times, her mother would tell her of Eagle and her three chicks, how Eagle had to fly away from a storm, and could only take one chick to safety. How she asked each chick in turn what they would do for her when they were grown. How the first one offered first pick of her meals when she was grown, and was dropped to her death on the rocks below.

How second chick offered to save her mother from the storm when she was grown - and was dropped to her own death.

How third chick promised to do the same for her own chick if she ever had to - and was carried away to safety.

Cat would listen and try to ask questions that would be heard right, and steer clear of questions that would be heard wrong.

Recently, she’d decided to ask a question she’d been steering clear of back almost as far as she could remember.

If there had been a fourth chick - would Eagle have saved third chick? Did she get the right answer, or did Eagle just save her so she’d have at least something to work with while she was breeding three new chicks?

Her mother had stayed quiet a scary long time, and then said Hah! scary loud. I never once thought of that! All those years I heard that story told, I just assumed last answer was right answer. What answer would fourth chick give?.

And she had sounded genuinely curious, like she wanted to hear an answer, not like she was waiting to pounce on an answer and dismember it.

Since then, they’d found out a lot about fourth chick. She was limitless in her ambitions, while neat in her nest. She was polite to the elderly, but would stand her ground against injustice. She would one day